BRITAIN’S CHILDREN

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 November 1939, Page 11

BRITAIN’S CHILDREN

CAN AUSTRALIA HELP ? A month of warfare has passed. Still | no bombing raids over London, Birmingham, or Glasgaw. A precious month to prepare for the evacuation of British children to safe territory before civilian warfare begins. Now the Americans are preparing a plan for taking British children out of the danger zones. Why has nothing been done in Australia? (writes Geoffrey Hutton in “The Argus.”) The suggestion was made to “The Argus.” It was passed on for what it was worth. Thousands of private citizens welcomed it, and offered their homes or their services in organising the work. So far no real reason has been put forward for rejecting the plan. Has it been rejected, or has it been merely disregarded? Perhaps we have more important things to consider than the lives of children. Perhaps America has certain advantages which Australia lacks. Why should it be a better home for British; children? It is nearer, of course, and | it is neutral. Let the original author of the proposal assess these advan-., tages himself. 1 Critics of my proposal, he says, have emphasised the fact that no parents want to part with their child) en tot three years, two years, or even a year. If their children are being sent 3.000 miles will they be any greater comfort to their families than if they were sent 12,000 miles? ■ We are, of course, a nation at war. But does this vitally affect the lives of Australian children. Can we be called a combatant country in the same sense as Britain and France, which live under the shadow of the enemy’s air arm? So far we lie outside the war zone, and although no one knows what the next few months may bring, there does not seem at present to be much more danger that the war will spread to Australian soil than that it will spread to American. Granted that British men and women are prepared to undergo a sacri-

lice for their children’s good, there can be no insuperable difficulties either in the way of bringing the children here or of looking after them when they are here. Ships are leaving Australia full and returning practically empty. Moreover, Germany has shown herself to be afraid of moral ostracism. She is missing no chance of placing her actions in as favourable a light as possible. Could a country in Germany’s position dare to refuse safe conduct to ships on such an errand of mercy? This is the short-range view, but there is a long-range view as well. In the minds of its author the long-range view is an essential part of the plan perhaps the most significant part. The parents play as important a part in this project, for there is no reason why this migration of children should be only a temporary one, to be reversed after a few months or a few

years. . | Australia needs immigrants; Ameri-i ca has passed the period of intensive j immigration. For years we have been asking for rßitish settlers to help in developing and populating the conn-, try. What greater impetus to migration could there be than the letters of their children from their new homes? An influx of children would be the surest possible method of bringing an influx of adults later. The day is approaching when there will be as many British men and women Jiving in the Dominions as there are in the Homeland. When that happens the centre of the Empire may gradually shift, as the centre of the Spanish Empire shifted from Europe to South America. Where will the new centre be? In Canada? In South Africa ? There are reasons which suggest that it is more likely to be Australia. This is a nation which is as British as Britain itself. It is not subject to foreign influences within or across any frontier. Its boundaries, like Britain’s arc the sea. Without its subtropic areas and its desert lands is still has living room for millions more than are populating it to-day. It grows enough Wool to support the world's greatest textile industry; yet to-day

it sends nearly all its crop oversea for spinning. If it is held against invasion, it must develop. Perhaps this vision will not be fulfilled in a few months or a few years. It is a vision of the future, but it is part and parcel of that project for protecting the children of: Britain from. !1 “menace ot the air, which wa? before us, and which we have laid before the public. The children come first, as they must in any long-range social project. The author of this plan asks only that Ihe public should hear and should judge it.